Healy 2 coal plant to start up

Golden Valley Electric Association of Fairbanks will begin test- ring the 50 Megawatt Healy 2 coal plant at Healy in June and hope to have it fully operational in September, officials told a legislative committee in Juneau March 6. Healy 2 has had a lengthy retro t after being built originally by the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority in the late 1980s to test new clean-coal technology. GVEA subsequently purchased the plant. Healy 2 is expected produce power for 5.5 cents to 6 cents per kilowatt hour, the utility said. The new plant will allow GVEA to reduce its natural gas- red power purchased wholesale in Southcentral Alaska and sent north on the Anchorage-Fairbanks electric intertie.
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State’s largest solar array in Fairbanks

Golden Valley is also building the state’s largest solar power installation, an $850,000 project that will cover 3 acres. ABS Alaskan Inc. is the contractor. When complete the facility will produce enough power for 50 homes. It will be operational in October.
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Kenai to get gas from its land fill

The Kenai Peninsula Borough will launch a $100,000 feasibility study of a land- ll methane extraction project at the borough’s Central Peninsula Land Fill. The project would be done in cooperation with Alaska Electric and Energy Cooperative, a subsidiary of Homer Electric. The methane, a major component of natural gas, would be used for power generation. A similar methane-extraction project has been operating at Anchorage’s land ll.
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30 million gallons fuel savings

Seventy seven renewable energy projects are now operating, mostly in small rural communities, as a result of the state’s Renewable Energy Fund, which provided state grants and required local matching funds for the projects. The number is current through the end of 2017, according to the Alaska Energy Authority, which manages the program. In calendar 2016 68 projects then operating resulted in a savings of 30 million gallons of diesel worth $60 million that would otherwise have been burned as fuel (2017 data not yet available). From 2009 to 2016 the cumulative value of the diesel savings is estimated at $218 million. This is money that rural utilities would have spent for fuel.

The operating projects are a mix of wind (26 percent); heat recovery (21 percent); biomass (18 percent) with the balance hydro. The net present value of the cumulative state investment as of 2016 is $603 million, while the total benefits are estimated at $1.58 billion (again net present value) for a cost/bene t ratio of 2.64. That means for every $1 spent there is $2.64 in bene ts.
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Residential kilowatt (kWh) rate comparison

17.3 ML&PAnchorage
18.6 Chugach Electric Assn., Anchorage
19.5 Matanuska Electric Assn., Mat-Su
21.6 Seward, City of (winter)
22.0 Homer Electric Assn.
22.8 Golden Valley Electric, Fairbanks
28.3 Copper Valley Electric, Valdez
29.7 Copper Valley Electric, Glennallen
33.0 Seward, City of (summer)
Source: Golden Valley Electric Assoc., presentation to House Energy Committee, March 3